Empty Depth,Empty Breadth,and the Forging of a Therapeutic Alliance

This paper describes a case in which analyst and analysand became interlocked in battles that drew out the 'mad' parts of each other. It explores how the extreme conflict may have actually been an integral part of what has become a truly therapeutic process for both. Theoretically, the dialectical movement of becoming through contradiction is used to help explicate how mutually destructive enactments were necessary building blocks of genuine intimacy.